


After the Afterparty

by originally



Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally





	After the Afterparty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salvadore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvadore/gifts).



The wall of the warehouse was refreshingly solid behind him as Dionysus slid down it, coming to rest on the cold, damp tarmac floor. The sky above the forest of industrial concrete was streaked with orange and red. Shepherd’s warning. Or someone’s warning, anyway. A few feet away, the door opened and closed again.

“Nice light show,” Dionysus said.

Inanna laughed. “Thanks. I do try.” He dropped to the floor, crossing his legs like a child at story time. “Nice party.”

“I do try.” Dionysus grinned and Inanna grinned back, the smile lighting up his features like the sunrise overhead. He looked relaxed, happy, a little high. Dionysus loved that he could give him that.

“Those powers of yours are something else,” Inanna said. “I've been thinking… do you want to do a track together? Just imagine what we could do if we collaborated. Your fans and mine, pleasure on a mass scale, the biggest orgy-rave the world has ever seen.”

It was hard to say no to Inanna at the best of times. There was just something about him that made you want to give him what he wanted. Anything he wanted. Still. “That's not really my thing.”

“Pleasure?”

“Sex.”

“You're an asexual fertility god?”

“You’ve seen weirder,” Dionysus said, shrugging. “I know. I’ve been in your head.”

Inanna gave him a slow once-over, calculating rather than objectifying. The glitter on his nails caught the light as he reached out a slim hand to touch the badge pinned to Dionysus’s shirt. “You've been in a lot of heads. When was the last time you stopped?”

“I don't need to stop,” Dionysus said, and it was so easy to slip back into Inanna’s head, into his revellers’ heads. He was each of them at once and none of them in particular, beyond boundary and identity and individual. The hivemind spread before him like a constellation in the night sky, a glittering network of nodes, each of them just needing a little nudge towards joy—

“Stop,” said Inanna, his voice resonating with ancient power.

For the first time, Dionysus felt like a young god.

Inanna’s hands were on him, drawing him into an embrace. He let himself be drawn. The glittering constellations faded back to a thrum at the edge of his consciousness.

“You have to stop,” Inanna said.

“I don’t know how.”

“We have two years. Maybe. Luci—” Inanna cut himself off. “Don’t make it shorter than it has to be.” He kissed the top of Dionysus’s head, soft and fleeting.

“I’ll think about it,” Dionysus said.

“Good,” Inanna said, “because I have plans for you.” He grinned again, that smile that made everyone fall in love with him.

“Do the plans involve breakfast? I know a place that does coffee strong enough to raise the dead.”

Inanna unfolded his long legs and stood, reaching down a warm hand to pull Dionysus up with him. He didn't let go. Around them, the sounds of the morning began to filter in. The city was waking up.


End file.
